Babu has caused Drobey – “Caveman” – not to be able to sleep. Teddy is his ambassador, bringing messages, and potato chip bags back and forth. Babu’s written reaction to this? “Bunk.” She writes a lot about piano lessons. Her teacher is getting lessons her self and now things are much more strict in class….
Tag: local history
The Doors in This House 4/3/16
In this house I must keep fighting with the porch door, They close all throughout this house but don’t latch. The only way to win is to slam it hard And wiggle the handle wildly. He wakes from the other room, It’s past noon And is yelling at the sound. We aren’t sleeping well Too…
Dedicated to Stanley Midura
My timing was bad when I brought the newest passages to her. I was giving her her 8:00 pills – bedtime pills – and I had given her her dessert and my cat was meowing in the hallway…Usually the process of reading these diary entries takes a half an hour – and I’ll be honest,…
Third Week of April, 1935
Easter shopping makes one so tired. I bet she looked dazzlingly all decked out. A boy from a class they had together the previous year died. She doesn’t tell us how. She writes something about Caveman, but I swear, it is in code! She talks a lot this month about winter weather in April and…
Babu and Her Father
When I showed the second week of April to Babu it was really the last passage, Sunday, that we spent the most time on. At first I tried to prod her about Drobey AKA “Caveman” and I think the only way I’ll ever know is if I ever find the previous year’s diary. All…
Second Week of April 1935
Babu is so engrossed in a book she can’t do her homework. I looked it up and it was hard to find but it seems to be “There’s Always Tomorrow” by Ursula Parrott, a romance novel. 🙂 She gets her rose shaded glasses and finds out her eyes were pretty bad. To think she sees…
Maps to Where She’s Been
April is National Poetry Month! My mind seemed to have forgotten by not my fingers. I’ve been producing a lot of poems lately. I thought I’d share! Maps to Where She’s Been She fears the murky places in her memory, Places she can no longer go. Ancient cartographers would have simply scrawled “There be dragons”…
The First Week of April, 1935
April fool’s day pranks – Babu fell for one but didn’t enact her own. Her teacher embarrasses her again – but it’s not an April Fool’s joke, it’s her M.O. Babu laments her lack of popularity and her abundance of zits. Fooey ! She is beautiful, kind, interesting, and smart. People clearly love her and…
Excerpts from March
In my last post I didn’t share all the adorable Babu quotes for March because there were some entire passages that I wanted to share. Saturday, March 16, 1935 I loved today. I was mostly sun shining and oh so warm. All the kids were out playing. Sophie was in bed because she got an…
What does this silence speak?
What did my silence from this blog for so long indicate? And what does her silent reading now show? I’m back at it so I bring all of March 1935’s journals down to Babu. She begins reading and, like every single other time, she tells me: “I’ve never seen Jenete written that way.” Then she…
The Second, Third, and Fourth Week of March
Babu celebrates her 17th birthday! Her mother gives her a beautiful compact and her friend gives her a slip – with lace! Babu is up to more shenanigans. The class, and Babu, get answers from another girl for the English test and then she and Sophie use the excuse of the crowd to skip church,…
What I’ve learned so far…
I’ve learned… …that this is important. And it’s important to do now. The blog keeps me accountable but really it’s about the time spent with her sharing the memories and people and retelling her story, the one she wrote, back to her. ….that even though that sounds like I’m doing her a favor, she has…
transcribingmemory 